


shining like the sun at night

by eternal_elenea



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: ACOK spoilers, Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-26
Updated: 2012-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-04 09:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/392083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternal_elenea/pseuds/eternal_elenea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loras remembers being a boy of the summer and he remembers the darkness of the night; he remembers waking up to empty beds and a new king to serve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shining like the sun at night

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for ACOK and a huge spoiler for 2x05, but after that episode, it is free of major spoilers.
> 
> Title from "Anna Sun" by Walk the Moon.

There is a king on the Iron Throne and Loras kneels, says, “Your Grace,” and the Baratheon King, blonde and with the eyes of a crimson lion, says, “Ser Loras. Rise.”

-

The white cloak is stiff, too heavy, on his shoulders, but if there is anything Loras has learned, it’s the words of the court and the handle of a sword and so he turns to the Kingslayer and says, “My thanks, Ser, you shall not be disappointed.”

Loras does not think about the rainbow cloak that he keeps at the bottom of his trunk and he doesn’t think about the king that he once served. Loras is an honorable knight, a newly appointed member of the Kingsguard, and he certainly doesn’t think about the man who should instead be sitting on the throne with his antlered crown and Loras at his side.

-

Margaery is betrothed to Joffrey and it is a good match, a smart match; her eyes are every inch a future queen’s, but, then – she was already queen once.

She sits by this king’s side and smiles at him and answers him with demure glances and placid words. She answers with sly double entendres and grins at Loras and still her mask never slips.

She may always have been destined queen, but there are still things that Margaery should not have been fated for – bruised wrists, bellowing sleeves, near-hidden winces. Loras watches her, at night, in front of the mirror with her maids surrounding her and her dead, dead eyes and shaking fingers. He watches her, pale against the gilded silks and golden necklaces, and she tells him, when he asks if this is really what she wants, “Of course, brother, it is everything I have ever wanted and more. Won’t you join me and the King for tea?”

Even he almost believes her and all of the spies do and he admires her for he could never lie as she does. She will be a good queen to Joffrey, even if she should not have been fated to it, even if she should have been fated to a life of golden stags and not lions, just as Loras should have been.

-

The Iron Throne is empty and the sun rises in the west. The halls of King’s Landing are covered in the roses of Highgarden and the slate and sea of Storm’s End. Renly laughs and he is brighter than the sun could ever hope to be. “We shall rule together,” he says.

Loras wakes to a light in the east that grows ever dimmer by comparison.

-

There are many things that should have been and should not have been and Loras can list them upon his hands even without ink. There are many things that should and should not have been and then there are the things that _are_ and Loras likes these least of all.

-

More often, Loras’ dreams are of the man and not the King, of a bed full of sheets and a tousled head and half-asleep words, mumbled. Loras dreams of Renly as he was and as he might have become, dreams memories and fantasies and soon he can barely say the difference.

Loras imagines Renly again undoing the laces on his breeches and the wildness in his eyes, remembers the way that Renly used to kiss him and the way that his mouth had felt, lower, against Loras’ thigh, against his cock. He dreams of the noises that used to fill their chambers as Renly pushed into him, the groans from Renly’s mouth and from his own.

Loras dreams and he never forgets that it isn't real, but still he wakes forever-racing towards that feeling, having to remind himself that it will never be. He wakes and the cobwebs are ever harder to chase though they are not running.

-

There is a difference between knowing and hoping and Loras wonders why he must have both, why he must be waiting for something that he can’t even describe and, yet, will never have.

-

"Be my queen," Renly had teased him, once, threading his fingers through Loras’ hair and Loras slaps him on the arm, smiling at the jest, says, “Even that would not be enough."

"No?" Renly says, eyebrow arching, and there is no more laughter in his tone now, “What would?”

Loras grins at him, but there is sincerity too, and he says, “Only your right hand and your heart will do, Renly, and even then I would be a bargain," and Renly laughs and his eyes crinkle at the corners and he says, “All that and more, if you wish, my mind and heart and hand."

-

Loras is now sworn to Joffrey and he sees things that he would not have imagined; kneels anyway to this spoiled child, this monster, wearing the face of a king. The streets are chaos and the people are starving and the city that he had once seen on a pedestal slowly crumbles under the weight of Joffrey’s reign. The children scrabble against the walls of the Red Keep and he sees the Queen Regent, with her son’s eyes, turn them away.

Loras is now sworn to Joffrey and he now does Joffrey’s bidding and nothing more – it is no longer his place to judge, and even less his place to speak.

-

"Find me a way to win," Renly had told Loras. "Be at my side," Renly had told Loras.

Loras had done both and still there are no thrones.

-

The days of high summer have gone and Loras remembers them through the haze of fog as if they had been years ago and not merely weeks. Loras remembers youth as if he is an old man now and not still seven-and-ten; remembers the great golden host that would surely claim King’s Landing and install the rightful king.

Loras remembers sweat and sun and exuberance and now there is naught but the chill of autumn; remembers thinking himself a man, but he had been still a child. Loras remembers the call of war and of glory, but now there is only duty.

It had been summer that was all of their downfall, and his most of all. Loras was a summer child, hounding for victory, and so he had not known the ice of winter, the evercoming ruin that they had been headed towards. Loras had been so sure of himself, so sure of the light that shone upon them, that he had not considered any path but one.

It had been summer, for all of them and especially Loras, and then the night had overcome them, as surely as the summer once had; then, the golden sun was slain and bloody upon the ground, until it could only be buried like any other man, with stained clothing and salty tears.

-

He had forgotten, up until then, that winter was coming. He will not forget again.

-

“There are rats in the walls,” Renly had said, Margaery had said, and this is why Loras does not speak of what he sees in the streets of King’s Landing, in the throne room, does not speak the treason that threatens, always, to escape his lips.

“There are rats in the walls,” they had said, and this is why Loras keeps silent, but it is also because his words mean nothing, not anymore.

-

Loras dreams of words that had meaning, once, dreams of stubble under his fingers and what he had told Renly before any of this had begun. Loras dreams of the question he had asked: “Do you know who should be king?”

There were other words too, later, words of war and of peace, of glory but never of defeat: Renly’s words. “When I take King’s Landing,” he said and the host cheered under the sun; “Loras,” he laughed at night. (Dark and full of terrors.)

-

Loras wakes and it is dark outside. Loras wakes again and it is dark outside. Loras wakes. It is dark.

-

Joffrey sits on the throne and he wears a Baratheon cloak, a Baratheon crown, but it is the crimson of blood spilt that reminds Loras of who he truly is. Joffrey wears a black cloak and Renly ended crimson-necked and these are mistakes overlooked, but they are still mistakes.

There are whispers of the Lannisters of Casterly Rock, and, for once, they are not the whispers of the commoners, but of the queen. The queen strokes the hair of her son and she murmurs in his ear that he is a lion and Loras thinks of names defiled, of houses, once majestic, of Targayen-born children slaughtered in their beds. The queen whispers treasons towards the former king and in each breath it is clear that Joffrey is not of his blood and Loras wonders if he is the only one that hears.

-

There are words that he dreams, and there are those so seared into his memory that he need not:

"I would fight for you." Loras had said and this is the promise that he never kept.

-

The first time he raises a sword in Renly’s name, it is already too late and Renly is already gone and there is nothing that Loras can do. The first time Loras goes into battle for his king, for his lover, he is screaming and he cannot think past the all-consuming blur of grief in his mind; does not remember until far later that he has never before killed a man.

Loras raises his sword to the guards, slits the throats of men that he had ridden beside, that he had jested with, and all that he knows is that they have failed their king, that Renly is _dead_. All that Loras knows is that they were sworn to protect Renly, but they still have not failed him half-so-much as Loras has.

He thinks of Renly’s face and all he can see is blood and soil, all he can remember is the gleam of the fallen crown; all he knows is that summer has gone. Loras thinks of the King and all that he can think is that he is no true knight, only a crying boy.

Renly’s skin is cold and Loras cradles his head into his own chest and he cannot see past the anguish.

Loras presses a kiss into Renly’s brow, holds his fingers to Renly’s jaw, and he dreams of what was supposed to be and what is.

-

Loras is a knight of the Kingsguard, but he has long since felt like one. Loras has learned, now, that knights are not the figures of tales, not golden heroes, only ruined men covered with blood and armor. Loras has learned that he is nothing, only a knight, and that it must be enough, for it is all that he will have.

He is Loras Tyrell and now he knows of winter, knows of kings and of their servants; now he knows that loyalty may be invaluable, but it is as changeable as the sea breeze. The sun has set and the night is upon them and Loras will never again be as he once was, will never be the shining knight atop the hill, nor the golden boy of summer.

The sun has set and the night is upon them and now Loras will never be anything more than who he had been, once, at Renly’s shoulder.

-

What is the opposite of growing, Loras wonders sometimes.


End file.
